Morning Notes

Affordable Apartments Get Green Certification — The 36-unit Macedonian apartment complex in Green Valley has become the first EarthCraft-certified new multifamily building in Arlington and the most energy-efficient EarthCraft building in Northern Virginia. The affordable apartments, at 2229 Shirlington Road, received the green building certification thanks to a special central heating and cooling system, foam insulation and other high-efficiency components. The building is a partnership between affordable housing nonprofit AHC Inc. and the Macedonia Baptist Church. [AHC Inc.]

Jail to Host Mother’s Day Event — The Arlington Sheriff’s Office will be hosting its bi-annual Incarcerated Mother’s Holiday Program at the county lockup Monday night, one day after Mother’s Day. From 6:00 to 8:00 p.m., female inmates will get the chance to have a “contact visit” with their children within the jail. The event will feature a card exchange, dinner and bonding time. “The program is designed to strengthen and encourage mothers to have positive relationships with their minor children to help lessen the impact and effects of separation,” the Sheriff’s Office said in a press release.

New Site Fixes and Features – We made some fixes and added some features to the site overnight. Among the changes: the comment problem we described yesterday has been resolved, we’ve added new fields to your user profiles, and the forums are now operational. Note that there are still some bugs to be worked out with the forums and with user profiles, especially for Internet Explorer users. Please let us know what you think of the changes in the comments.

Wikipedia lists the neighborhoods in Arlington and has the following entry:

Nauck (Green Valley A.K.A The Valley)

Growing up not too far away from there I always just referred to the area as Green Valley and stayed the hell away from it.

MC 703

I live in the Dolley Madison Towers and have wondered since moving in whether it is in Nauck (which has an Established In… sign just north of my building on Glebe) or am technically part of Army/Navy CC and therefore entitled to go play lawn darts on the 14th fairway.

Narlington

Yea it’s south of route 50, so you may have to leave your safe compound of lion park or lion village.

dynaroo

Or lion cage or lion’s den or lion pit or I ain’t lion.

Aaron

Who you gonna believe, me or your lion eyes?

http://blacknell.net/dynamic/ MB

The last time I saw that halfwit-worshipping poster, it was on a Shell gas station pillar that got knocked down the next day.

Zer

Who is that supposed to be? I have seen a few of those posters around Ballston.

South Arlington

Looks like someone is trying to become the next Mr. Brainwash.

ronald reagan

Duh, it’s me.

John Fontain

I keep waiting for the day when an investigative news org like 60 minutes does a report on the the farce we call “green” home building (i.e., LEED). Those who have examined its point system and compared it to modern construction methods know its little more than a marketing device that allows builders to charge more.

KalashniKEV

It briefs well though. Pretty much any “standards organization,” “certification authority,” and probably more than half of the “Professional Organizations” are just scams. LEED is one of the biggest.

dynaroo

rolleyes

Aaron

My eye-rolling meets ISO 9000 standards.

KalashniKEV

That might be so, but is your eye rolling ISO 9000 certified, or merely compliant? Certification is required.

Message me if you would like a consultant. I will get you ready for your first Compliance Audit. Then you can pay the Auditor, who must be a different person, and who will surely give you a GO b/c why turn a paying member away from the club? After that, you’re GOLD (or rather the lazy French scam-urai master who invented it is)

Jezebel

+100

Arlwhenever

And to build with substandard short life-cycle components built out of recycled materials,– we used to call it particle board. Check out all the surface treatments, for example, at Kenmore Middle School, they are already warping, splaying and splitting. LEED = pay more for build to not last components.

Except particle board is put together with glues that would not fit into a LEED program. Just because something is LEED, does not mean there are no material selection options and it is all cheap material. The architect, engineer, or the budget likely determined the materials. Low budget is low budget regardless. I’ve seen a lot of jobs skimp on things in construction to have it bite them in maintenance costs or energy costs year after year….

Arlwhenever

Arlington County’s prioirty is playing the LEED game, not buying materials to last and getting the most for its money. Builders are ripping off the County and its funded constituencies (APS and AHC, for example) because the County is blinded by its Green Religion. The teatments in Kenmore would be holding up much better if they were put together with glue.

Or maybe made with a more renewable material such as bamboo rather than glued together at all? I would be willing to bet choices were made within the LEED specs on products, and those choices were made based on money. You can mandate LEED, but then still cheap out.

PhilL

There are binders for “particle board” (MDF) that are urea-formaldehyde free, which is what LEED requires for credit. There’s also what is referred to as exterior glue. Both options are more expensive and limit your choices of products.

dynaroo

Letting people breathe formaldehyde is also expensive and limits their choices.

Pollen bothers me PhilL, and I have no choice about that. But, I do have a choice to work in an environment where I am not near the tree pollen that bothers me. So, I have made a conscious choice to limit my exposure by not being an arborist. Duh. Just as I choose to not sit next to someone who is smoking, or eat in a smoking area of a restaurant. Yeah, it is in the environment but it is a choice to limit exposure.

Breath it all in, my friend. Take a bunch of deep breaths. Add to the stats that will ultimately help the rest of us.

dynaroo

So, Phil, again, what’s your point? You’re just pointing out that we can’t eliminate all formaldehyde? Thanks. If you think I’m “fabricating” it’s because you haven’t made your point clear.

dynaroo

Nobody is panicking.

You’re making the pathetic argument that because we breathe a little now, it’s okay to breathe alot. Did you flunk science?

PhilL

I never said it was OK to breathe it, a little or a lot. And I support LEED credits that reduce urea-formaldehyde in building products.

You are really good at fabricating arguments with people. I think it is actually pretty rude behavior for this forum, and one of the reasons I read this site a lot less.

dynaroo

Ever here the term “dose alone makes the poison,” Phil?

It means that every substance is safe or harmful depending on it’s level of exposure.

KalashniKEV

“You are really good at fabricating arguments with people.”

No… he (or she) is not…

dynaroo

Somewhere out there right now, someone’s complaining that LEED makes things too expensive.

madisonmanor

Not implicitly more expensive, but the building I work in 75% of the time is LEED. Having to flush the stupid low flush toilet 4 or 5 times because it doesn’t work well pretty much defeats the purpose of “saving” water. When I had the option to choose new toilets for my house, I chose the one that could flush 19 golf balls at a time – and I never have to flush more than once.
Waterless urinals – another LEED ruse – are also not all they are cracked up to be because the stench of stale urine is overwhelming.

dynaroo

A few low-flow toilets – which ALL new toilets are today, not just in LEED buildings – don’t work well. But the toilet makers have figured it out. Perhaps your building was built right after the low-flow mandate when the toilets were crappy (so to speak). Or perhaps they are ultra-lowflow or something.

There are perfectly good options that work fine, like modern low-flow toilets, dual-flush, or a powered flush. So your experience is probably not typical.

gadzooks!

If your bowels are moving up to 19 golf balls at a time, you really need to see a doctor. A change in diet will likely be recommended.

Josh S

Actually, the waterless urinals I’ve encountered (almost all in APS buildings) have been surprisingly free of odor and grossness. We don’t exactly suffer from a lack of water in Virginia, but still – they’re great. Also, I’m more than happy to suffer a little bit in the name of saving water and energy. We all tend to be a bit too entitled most of the time…

yeah, things in LEED construction like stormwater runoff management is a big scam. The streams in the area would be so much better if we’d just let hugh flows go untethered into our lakes and streams. It would be so much better for the plant and animial life there.

James

Who’s face is that?

othersideoftheriver

Looks like Bruce Willis.

Thomas

It’s Walter…or Walternate.

arlcyclist

I think it’s supposed to be Reagan and if it is then it blows because it hardly looks like him. Whomever did this must be pretty conflicted to think that anything to do with Reagan has anything to do with counterculture.